Your Personal Engagement Roadmap

Claudette: Today I’m excited to have Bob Kelleher here with us. He is the author of an amazing book called “I-Engage: Your Personal Engagement Roadmap”. He’s also the founder and president of The Employee Engagement Group, a global survey products and consulting firm working with leadership teams to enhance their leadership and employee engagement effectiveness. Thanks for being here Bob, I’m excited for you to tell us about what inspired you to write your latest book.

Bob: It’s great to be here Claudette, thank you so much for having me! In regards to my inspiration for my book,

I’ve been frustrated that in spite of a booming economy what we’re finding is we’ve only seen a marginal uptick in organizational wide employee engagement.

In fact, all of our collective efforts haven’t been really moving the needle. As I started peeling away the onion, I realized that there’s something else going on that needs to be addressed.

The Disengagement Dilemma:

Claudette: In your book you talk about this disengagement dilemma and share research on this topic. What have you found out about why people are so disengaged?

Bob: There are plenty of seemingly obvious factors that organizations simply don’t address. One of which is the effort around engagement is often to focus on the employee.

What we’ve seen with our research is that what happens after work has as much to do with one’s engagement as what happens during work.

So if you just moved because of elder care needs or if you’re going to a divorce or you’re dealing with a loved one who has an illness… or on the happier side you just got married or a child was born, these sorts of life events can really trigger your engagement at work, up or down.

If I’m going through a divorce it doesn’t really matter what my organization is doing, my disengagement in life is going to negatively impact my engagement at work. What we’veseen is that the pockets of engagement that seem to be high tend to be focused around managers who are these empathetic leaders. People really leading the employee in a more holistic way, so that they’re more sensitive to what’s happening after work as much as what’s happening during work.

Claudette: Throughout your book mention accountability, which I agree is so important. What is its role in engagement? What do you see happening there?

Bob: Employees need and want to be held accountable, so in high accountability cultures we actually see engagement scores higher than low accountability cultures, because the vast majority of employees are driven to achieve, right? And if you’re driven to achieve, a manager that is holding his or her employees accountable is reinforcing achievement, the intrinsic motivation driver we all have. We see a direct correlation between high accountability cultures and high engagement scores when we do surveys.

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